


Ghilan'nain's Grove

by KestrelShrike



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fade Tongue, Fluff, Somniari, kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 17:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4313976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KestrelShrike/pseuds/KestrelShrike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’m going to lie and say this is for Solas positivity week. Maiwe explores her powers as a somniari. I always thought that Solas would be particularly impressed by this, especially if the Inquisitor wasn’t a mage. Something light and fluffy, but with very real questions lying at its heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghilan'nain's Grove

Ghilan’nain’s Grove must have been beautiful once. It was easy to picture the brown grass as green once more, the stinging thorns as flowering vines. The trees were dead and brittle now, but once they had stood proud and verdant, branches only this bare in the dead of winter, when a white snow made everything silent and cold. When Maiwe fell asleep on the dry earth, the taste of ashes was heavy in her mouth. 

Her eyes came open slowly, feeling as though they had been glued shut. Ghilan’nain’s hart guardians still loomed above her, but the sky was more blue than it had been the day before, and the dead vines had been scraped from the palmated antlers. She turned her head, and where once the earth was cracked and brown, grass now bloomed, small white flowers speckling the landscape. A sense of calm unreality descended over Maiwe, and she understood at once that this was a dream. No, not a dream. A memory of what once was, a memory that she could visit and be physically present in. Her heart should have been racing, but she felt preternaturally calm, unable to question anything. She brought her hand slowly up to eye level, and the Anchor burned brighter than it ever had before, the green light searing her eyes. 

When she stood, her joints did not protest, and her breathing felt free and clear. Though Maiwe had only experienced this once before, she knew instantly that she straddled that land between the Fade and the sleeping world. Solas had brought her to the Fade before; she had never gone of her own volition. Or perhaps she had. Her dreams were so much more vivid now, the objects in them so real that she could reach out and grab them. This was simply the natural extension of that. The grass was smooth between her fingers. She pulled out a blade and blew on it like she has a child, producing a high whistle that made her laugh. The logic of the situation did not bother her; rather, she delighted in the magic that was suddenly available to her, the mysteries that she could unlock. She was no mage; the Keeper had never taught her the stories beyond what every Dalish child knew. So many secrets had been kept from her, and here she was discovering them herself, with nothing beyond Corypheus’ mysterious mistake. 

Maiwe could have spent hours simply delighting in life in a dead place, but she realized swiftly that she was not alone. Her brain felt fogged and slow, her reflexes dulled, but she managed to turn about swiftly, at least conveying some sense of being alert. “Who’s there?” It could be anything, but she felt safe, protected by the grace of a Goddess she was not sure she believed in. You are safe, the hart seemed to say. No, not hart. They were halla as they had once been, majestic and tall, representing Ghilan’nain’s grace and her greatest creation, the only one that the other Gods let live. 

“Maiwe?” From behind a fruit studded tree, Solas emerged. He looked surprised to see her there, though not displeased. “This is your doing.” No question- an assertion. This conjuration had little to do with him. 

“I think so. I spent all day wondering how beautiful the grove must have been, before the shems came.” Before predators had settled her, leaking poison and fire onto earth already scorched bare. “And here it is. But how? I am no mage.” The edges of the world grew more sharp. The Fade wanted to dull her, to keep Maiwe from questioning its magic, but it could not defeat her inquisitive mind. 

“I cannot say that I fully understand the mark on your hand, but we know how interconnected you are with the Fade. This is an area I myself have walked before, but never like this. I have not seen it in all its glory.” Solas wondered as much as she did, plucked a red apple from the tree and bit into it. Juice ran down his chin, but he wrinkled his nose in disgust. They were nothing but crab apples, their beauty masking an unpleasant taste. 

“I made this.” Perhaps she had not crafted it with her own two hands, but it was Maiwe’s creation none the less. Had it ever been so beautiful here? The past seemed slightly distorted; she embellished it, too reverent of what might have been. But Solas did not protest. They moved closer together, taking slow steps. Small flowers sprung back from each footfall, resilient to each light step. 

“I have said before that you are a surprise in every way, Inquisitor.” They stood facing each other, and their hands met, neither consciously aware of how their bodies moved together. From one of the trees, a bird gave a long trill and another answered. They were bright flashes, too swift to be seen. How could she make something like this? Pride swelled in Maiwe’s chest. She had no control over this, could not say how to make the dream re-occur or how to end it, but she had done it. What did they call mages who dabbled in dreams? There must have been a name for it, for this fragile magic she did not understand. 

“There have been very few somniari over the decades. I thought perhaps…” Solas did not finish his thought. Was this related to what he was able to do? The admiration in his voice distracted her. She was nothing; a sickly Dalish elf, not even lucky enough to be First or Second. Everything, her whole path, had been luck. This gift should not have belonged to her. Someone likely deserved it more, yet Maiwe held it close to her heart. 

“Somniari. Dreamer.” It was a word she had never heard before, but its meaning stuck in her mind as if it had been placed there. “Is this like the dream we shared before?” There was the faintest edge of mischief in her smile. Solas had the grace to blush, his freckles standing out sharply against the red, and even Maiwe looked away for a minute, her own cheeks growing pink. Everything here was so perfect. How could she bare to wake up? 

“I do believe we never determined if it was you or myself that started the so-called Fade tongue.” There were times Solas could surprise her, times when he seemed gallant and suave, and not at all awkward. The dream made them both bold. When in waking they would hesitate, continue to look away from each other until it was too awkward to bear, now their eyes met, and they both smiled widely, leaning forward so that their foreheads touched. 

“We can solve that argument now.” She would not have suggested this in reality, but it felt safe here. It felt right. “And then you can tell me how this all works. But not now.” Now their lips were busy, hungry, as they once again kissed beneath a sky tinged with green, their faces illuminated from below by the mark on her hand.


End file.
